


Two Sides of a Galleon

by Grace_28



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-War, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Curious Harry Potter, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Minor Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Muggle Culture, Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Smart Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26665861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grace_28/pseuds/Grace_28
Summary: In which a simple conversation on the Astronomy Tower leaves Harry falling in love with a silver-eyed blond who enjoys talking about wizarding history and Muggle world domination.In other words, Harry realizes that everything has two sides of a galleon. (e.g. 'Malfoy' and 'Draco')
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 152





	Two Sides of a Galleon

In which a simple conversation on the Astronomy Tower leaves Harry falling in love with a silver-eyed blond who enjoys talking about wizarding history and Muggle world domination. 

In other words, Harry realizes that everything has two sides of a galleon. (e.g. 'Malfoy' and 'Draco')

* * *

“What’s it like to die?”

Harry’s head jerked up from where it was wedged between his knees. 

_Malfoy’s kidding right? He’s not actually asking_ me _what the hell_ dying _is like… right?_

“What?” 

“On my birthday, my parents sentenced me to kill a mentor of mine. When he looked into my eyes and offered a hand, he told me everything was going to be alright, but killing someone wasn’t something you could just bounce back from. So was he reassuring, nay, steeling himself? Did he already know I wouldn’t be able to do it? If death was awaiting me, would I be asleep or would I be awake? Would I run or would I let it be? Would I be asleep or would I be awake? Is it like beating without a melody? Would I see those I love on the other side? Would I be ‘alright’ or would I just feel cold?”

Draco’s head snapped to Harry, his eyes somber as he asked these questions.

Harry didn’t know how he should answer.

 _‘Hey, I died once and it sucked’_ or maybe _‘I preferred being alive, if that’s what you’re really asking’_ , or perhaps _‘I know you didn’t kill Dumbledore’_ would be better. But, wouldn’t that be a sight? Telling your (ex)nemesis that you saw him try to kill someone? Telling your (ex)nemesis that you saw him fail and break down from trying to do it?

Malfoy would probably strangle him alive.

So Harry opted to say nothing, hoping that Malfoy continued— or maybe followed through and answered them on his own— with his self-made and messed-up questions.

But Malfoy remained quiet.

He turned back to the sky, where the moon had drifted downwards and the clouds were still visibly outlined even in the midnight sky. Harry followed his eyes, ducking his head back between his legs and praying that time passed more quickly. They’d sat here with each other before— this time was the only time that Malfoy spoke of course— but they’d never actually acknowledged each other. 

“Did Dumbledore try to stall for more time?” he drawled lazily right when the sun’s beams were starting to peep out from wherever they were hiding from. Jolting from his daze, Harry digested those words and frowned.

“Pretty sure he knew he was going to die one way or another,” he responded.

“I see…” Malfoy said tentatively. More silence ensued, but none of the boys moved in fear that their odd dynamic would be shattered and replaced with the familiar hatred neither had felt for the longest time. “Do you think he cared? After everything that happened between Grindelwald and him, do you think that Dumbledore looked forward to being on the other side and seeing him again?”

“Who’s Grindelwald?”

Malfoy blinked several times. Then he sighed and turned so his body was facing Harry entirely. “You hadn’t heard of him before?”

“No. Pretty sure 'Mione would’ve told me.”

Nodding, Malfoy took a deep breath and started explaining; his eyes glued its gaze to Harry’s very soul, something with impact was being added to the story that he was about to tell. “Back in the 1930s, he and Dumbledore were really good mates. As they were best friends, they truly were just the two sides of a galleon: Dumbledore pursued Light; Grindelwald pursued Dark. There were many speculations about Grindelwald’s feelings, but Dumbledore’s affection and respect for the bloke was well-known during their time. And then, around 1945, Grindelwald came close to wizard world domination, like Voldemort, and Dumbledore faced him in a battle. Grindelwald lost, and it was then well-known to all that Dumbledore had not been the same ever since his lover died.”

“His lover?” Harry’s eyes bulged. _Dumbledore was…?_

“Yes. They were romantically involved though, like I mentioned, we aren’t entirely sure of how Grindelwald felt. He was always using Dumbledore in a way, but he was always too blind to see it.” Malfoy sighed. “Merlin, this century has got to be the most messed up century in all of wizard world history. I don’t think the 1600s or 1700s were ever this bad— two Dark Lords back to back. It’s almost as bad as the witch trials of Salem.”

“Those were really a thing?” Harry remembered hearing about it from Hermione a few years ago, but he’d been too preoccupied with, y’know, _not_ -dying to really listen. He always just passed it off as another one of those things that Hermione always knew Harry would never believe.

“Yes. Many of the purebloods who tried to escape from the wizard world were burned alive by Muggles.”

So that’s why there're only 28 pureblood families left. 

“Shit, no wonder you guys hate them all.”

Malfoy let out a genuine laugh. A real, genuine laugh. As if Harry was one of his friends and made a hilarious joke that Malfoy could not help but laugh non-elegantly at. As if his stupid, unplanned comment was reason enough to make this ~~gorgeous~~ blond throw his head back and let out a thunderous laugh that Harry had never heard from him before. 

“We don’t _hate_ Muggles, Potter. We are much more powerful than them— we could’ve wiped them out if we waged a war. No, no we were just absolutely annoyed that the number of wizard families were getting wiped out because this non-magical society thought that they thought that they were the normal ones, even though they’re the ones that look like hairless baby gorillas. Honestly, imagine being told off by bacterias on petri dishes.”

Malfoy wiped a tear. 

“Honestly, we were more about being petty and protecting ourselves from their ‘normalcy’ than ‘hating’ Muggles. I mean, come on. Imagine hating on a more insignificant being— that would just be incredibly stupid of us, not to mention how much energy that would waste!”

Harry found himself agreeing even though he had no idea what Malfoy was talking about half the time. He did stop Muggle schooling when he was eleven. 

“But… you fought for your pureblood line or something… right?” Harry asked out-loud, wondering if what he assumed was wrong for all these years.

“Admittedly, yes. But most of us wanted to preserve wizard culture. Muggles they have this tendency to try and take over the world—” Malfoy paused, the sparkling in his eyes dulling for a single moment. “We started with questions about death. How did we end up talking about my lineage?”

“Dumbledore then war,” Harry supplied helpfully.

Malfoy frowned. “You’re rather good at conversation maneuvering. You’d have made a fine Slytherin.” When Harry scoffed, Malfoy quickly changed his mind. “Never mind. You’d have been ripped apart by the lot of us. You would have cost us half of our house points within the first year alone.”

Harry rolled his eyes. 

He’d tell Malfoy that the Hat nearly put him there when they talk later.

Wait. _‘Later’?_

“Whatever. You were saying something about preserving wizard culture…?”

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits, but he relaxed a bit and nodded slowly. He was probably glad for the change of conversation. “We didn’t want Muggles to take over our world like they did back in the early 100s. I’m sure that you’ve heard of their leader— Muggles had shifted the wording away from magic after all. I believe Muggles called him ‘Jesus’ or ‘Buddha’ or something like that.”

_“What?”_

“Merlin’s beard, Potter. You wanted me to continue but you're interrupting.”

“Sorry, it’s just I’ve never been the religious type but… _Jesus_? He was a wizard?”

Malfoy nodded slowly while he looked at Harry as if he was an idiot. 

“One of our world’s finest too. He loved Muggles, all of them despite their selfishness and idiocy, and preached about the two worlds that Muggles would go to after they died. Which, by the way, I personally think is offensive that he didn’t mention where wizards would go when they die.” He shrugged, his disinterest not showing since his eyes practically gleamed with delight. He looked much younger now that he was practically buzzing with energy with every word he said. And it was so breathtaking Harry nearly missed his last bits. “— anyways, Muggles then took over more than half of the entire world, shut magic out completely despite their history with it, and then took away our land as if it belonged to them. As their numbers grew, ours decreased. By the 1600s, there were roughly five hundred magical families left and, after the trials, there were only two hundred.”

By this point, Malfoy looked as though he was almost-sad.

“It was only a matter of time before they wormed their way into our already-condensed world too,” Malfoy said, his words no louder than a whisper as he continued. “They seduced our ancestors, claimed to love them, then they threw them away without embracing _everything_ about them like those Muggles had promised. The moment there was something odd about us, we were thrown out and ostracized. That's what they do. So most of us knew that if we had not taken a chance, magic itself would soon cease to exist and it would become no more than a fragment of a memory. Muggles were never the problem though. They always had the tendency to destroy beauty and then claim ignorance in face of their mistakes.”

“That’s…” Harry swallowed. He remembered those messed up books he used to read during school— history book after history book about wars and battles from the winner’s point of view. He remembered those notes that the Native Americans in America had scratched about the colonies and the wondrous tales about European slavery and European revolutions. “That’s rather dramatic, Malfoy.”

Not really, though. 

Malfoy was right.

Muggles tended to pretend like the problem never existed in the first place— racism, sexism, marxism, dictatorship, hatred, war, slavery— while they occurred around them. Most claimed ignorance and refused to speak up even when they knew something was wrong. They use ‘religion’ and ‘influence’ to protect their reputations, yet use none of such to protect others. Instead, they aim to destroy while giving the impression that they were ‘revolutionizing’. They corrupted minds through technology, exposed each other’s faults on the telly, spread hurtful rumors in schools, preached ‘equality’ instead of ‘equity’, and praised success instead of hard work. Muggles did destroy the most beautiful parts of human nature— love, hopes, and dreams— but… 

But they were trying to do their best weren't they?

They tried to invent things to make life easier, they found cures to infectious diseases, they tried to stop poverty and starvation. they love and hate and love then hate again… not everything went only one way. Not everything about Muggles was bad, just like how not everything about pure-bloods was bad. 

“I suppose so,” Malfoy replied.

“‘Two sides of a galleon’,” Harry quoted slowly.

When Malfoy’s eyes snapped to him, Harry realized that his logic appealed to everything. Muggles and wizards, light and dark, life and death— _Draco_.

Draco was not just some pretentious pureblood git Harry always thought of him to be; Draco laughs non-elegantly, he gets annoyed, he _cares_ . Merlin, Draco Malfoy bloody _cares_.

“That's right,” Draco agreed steadily, his eyes sparkling like it’d done before as he smiled softly in Harry's direction. “Two sides of a galleon.”


End file.
